00:00:06 John Daub: Hello everybody, the signal's kind of going in and out. I'm sorry about that. We're in the Tokyo Waterfront City area. This is a unique place that was supposed to be a lot more festive than it is, and this happens to be the resting place for the Tokyo Cauldron, where Naomi Osaka lit the flame a couple of days ago in the opening ceremony, and there it is right there. That's it. And yeah, I don't think the cauldron is in the stadium. I think it's here, unless they have it in two different places, but it's pretty unique to have it in this location. And yeah, I don't know, the signal's not so great out here. How you doing everybody?

00:00:48 John Daub: So I'm on Odaiba Island, which is where I was looking at the sunset a couple of days ago, and I wanted to come out here to show you where the cauldron is, where the Olympic flame is, and it's right there. I think it was designed by a guy named Okisato [?]. The design that you saw inside the stadium at the opening ceremony looked like Mount Fuji, and Naomi Osaka walked up the steps and lit the flame, and now the flame is over here. I guess they moved it from that spot to this spot. I'm not sure how it got here. Maybe in the middle of the night. I'm not sure. But that's it, and it's lit by some hydrogen fuel, and I believe it's going to be here forever. I don't know.

00:01:31 John Daub: And I'm going to take you around this area and show you how it looks. Look at how deserted and abandoned it is. It really is abandoned. Look in the distance there. That's the Yurikamome line going towards Big Sight, and yeah, there's really not a lot of people here. I think if the Olympic Games were open to overseas visitors, then it would be a lot more crowded. It's not even open really to people outside of the city of Tokyo, but we're here. There's also a typhoon inbound coming apparently tomorrow. It's going to be making landfall. We're not sure exactly where, but looks like it's going to have an impact on Tokyo. I got a location shoot that I got to ride my bicycle to. I might not have to cancel that, but there you go.

00:02:18 John Daub: It does look like a pencil holder. I don't know. There's a lot of people who are questioning the design. You see some volunteers in the distance there coming this way. It is a unique design, and I think it kind of signifies Mount Fuji in Tokyo, and the everlasting flame of the Olympic spirit that's in all of us, right? Admit it. I'm going to start from this point and then take you down towards the three-on-three basketball venue, which is pretty cool. There's nobody there either. You can just hear a lot of music and sounds, and there's like ten people cheering inside of there. But apparently the three-on-three basketball events are going on. I'm not really sure. It's kind of neat to be here and just sort of hang out.

00:03:12 John Daub: Now, there is a lot of signs and people telling you to social distance and to make sure that you stay away from other people. So I'm keeping a wide berth from those around me. There's a guy over here who has a pretty cool yukata (Japanese cotton kimono). That's the Tokyo 2020 logo on his yukata. I thought that was pretty spiffy. Yeah, I apologize. The signal strength might not be too good. See WRX turbos here. And John Davis, believe in yourself. Just do it. I appreciate that very much. That's nice. So you're getting a photo in front of the Olympic cauldron right there. Lit by Naomi Osaka a couple of days ago in the opening ceremony. You all know the story.

00:04:11 John Daub: So we're gonna make our way now towards Odaiba, where my bicycle is. And we take you away from normally scheduled NBC programming to bring you to Odaiba for a little bit of a walk down what is considered to be the Tokyo Waterfront City. And it's a really big, wide walkway that leads from, well, the cauldron all the way to Odaiba. Are there any Olympic expired foods being promoted? That's the thing. I think that this venue, this area here, was supposed to be filled with street food. It's really wide. My friend Greg Lamb, Life Where I'm From, and I, we rode our bicycles down here almost a year ago exactly to the day. For an episode riding bicycles around Tokyo. And, you know, there's no food vendors here at all. There's not much of anything except for maybe a vending machine which we could get a drink at.

00:05:20 John Daub: Now we're gonna end this livestream. Now this walkway goes all the way down to Big Sight, which is where the media center is. There's a press center there. So you could walk all the way there to the Hilton Hotel if you're part of the media and you're out of quarantine. It's kind of a nice walkway. There's the Ferris wheel. There's the Ferris wheel at the Venus Fort, which is one of the shopping malls there. A little bit of history. My friend Joe Nadai [?] and I filmed an episode mostly about him renting a family. A Japanese father, mother, sister. Like about, that was about a year ago too. He rented a family. Then later on we found out that it was all a farce. Nobody really rents them. And they ended up being exposed by the media. Because NHK featured a fake company. Or something like that. I don't know. Seemed real to me.

00:06:46 John Daub: Thanks for the super chat earlier, Chan. I'm walking now over the canal here. You can see there's Tokyo Bay over there. And you would see... Now that I think about it, we're gonna end up in front of the big Gundam robot statue thing. Over there by DiverCity. I just remembered that'll probably be our final destination. That's right in front of us. You can't quite see the big mobile suit yet. But you will. Soon. Back in 2019, Toyota were promoting self-driving buses which were meant to be trialed during the Olympics. I'm glad that you brought that up. I've been looking around the city for those self-driving cars and buses. I don't see any yet. It's kind of a letdown. I think that they're maybe waiting for the Paralympics.

00:07:39 John Daub: There was a notice on the Tokyo Olympic message board saying that they haven't made the decision on whether or not the Paralympics is going to have people in the stadium. If this is going to be open for the Paralympics. So I was checking about it. You can see the highways and the trains and the waterway here over the pedestrian bridge. You saw one on Tom Daley's stream. One of the American Olympians that are bringing you the inside look. Which is super cool. I saw that as well. I don't know if they're just limited to the Olympic Village or special areas. I think it's not something that's out in the wild maybe. I don't know. I hope that technology is let loose into the wild soon. ShooterFPS, good morning John and have a nice day. Thank you. Pretty nice day here.

00:08:34 John Daub: Alright, let's get walking over towards the 3-on-3 basketball venue. But about 15 minutes ago there were a lot less people. I thought this place was deserted and now I'm seeing more action. There's a little bit more people walking here. It's easy to social distance outside in this spot. They really decked it out, haven't they? Look at this little teeny banner just for the city name. Tokyo. I wonder whose job was it to order these banners. Somebody I'm sure came out, measured this light post, because it was here before, and said, okay we need a banner this size and this size. Somebody had that job. That's pretty crazy. Somebody had these jobs to measure these lights and then get a banner for them.

00:09:17 John Daub: And we have to come here to enjoy it. It is sad that a lot of sponsors pulled out. I think they had a lot of booths here that they were going to use to highlight their new technology. And they pulled out of those booths as well. Some of them still might be around. It's just really hard to figure out. There's not a lot of information to tell you what events are still on and what events aren't. The only way to know for sure is just to go to the venue or the area and check it out. So that's what I'm doing. I came here to the Tokyo Waterfront City to just check out what exactly do they have open to the public right now. Not a whole lot except for that Olympic Cauldron which you just saw.

00:10:02 John Daub: For those joining us, I'm going to turn around and maybe you can see just the top of the flames from this spot. Some of the professional photographers were trying to get me out of the way. What a pain in the neck they are. In the distance, you can now see the Olympic Cauldron. It looks like a flower in the center of your screen. Do you see that? That was moved from the stadium to this spot, I believe. As the permanent resting site for the cauldron. I guess they bring it back to the stadium. Or they got two of them? I'm not sure. I also found out where they are broadcasting every night from the balcony. I might go there to be a pain in the neck. From the balcony, from a spot, you can see them broadcasting with the light on. Lester Holt [?] there on the balcony getting that beautiful sunset. On a live stream that I just called Tokyo Sunset Stolen by Foreign Press. You can see that on the internet. That's really funny. I thought the title was funny. It's just tongue in cheek. I'm joking. It wasn't actually stolen, although they seem to love that spot.

00:11:22 John Daub: We're having fun out here. There's a lot of people moving stuff. Look at this. They're setting up something here. Maybe it's for the other skateboarding event where the skateboarders come out here to really make this place cool. There's a couple of signs that say, Skateboarders. This kandansha (Ferris wheel) or the Ferris Wheel is open. We say kandansha in Japanese. It's moving. I guess you can get in there. I guess they wipe it down between people and you can use it. Or maybe it's just turning because the Olympics are on and they want to show something positive. I don't know. There's a lot of question marks with these Olympics even now.

00:12:39 John Daub: Tonight, volunteers. Tonight, Peter von Gomm and I at 11pm on this channel are going to be doing a live studio live stream. I'm going to bring him in through Zoom to talk about the opening ceremony. He was the narration or voice of the Olympic opening. Giving a prayer for those lost during this pandemic and also for those that we lost during the Olympic Games. The first time recognizing 1972 Munich. I want to get his thoughts about his narration. On how he did and what he, how he felt about it. So that's going to be tonight at 11pm. We'll have Peter on live and we're going to talk about the opening ceremony and take some of your questions as well.

00:13:27 John Daub: And I'm dying for a water. I'm just going to go for water. This Koo is really good too. Right here. Kind of sugary though. Water is 130 yen. What? That's such a rip off. Okay. There's nothing else out here. Your choice is, you just have to pay for it. There's not even a water fountain. I would totally go for the water fountain. But. Oh, it's sold out. What a rip off. Everything's sold out. Oh my gosh. Okay. You know what? Somebody's got to, excuse me. Coca-Cola come refill your machines, please. Oh, that hurts. All right. I got like dry mouth syndrome right now. All right. We're going to keep on walking towards the three on three basketball venue, which was pumping out like rock music, which could be a copyright problem for this channel. You keep on going anyways.

00:14:47 John Daub: With the majority of the Japanese public not about tourists when borders open. That's a good question for tonight. We're going to ask Peter and address some of those questions. I don't know, but there's rumors that they're going to be accepting vaccine passports. So if you do have your two shots. There's a chance after the Paralympics, you can make a trip to Japan. I'm just speculating at this point based on some internet news. All right. I think we might be back here. The walkway is pretty basic, right? You can go on this side. There's a grassy area. And then on the other side, you can walk there as well. There's a train station here that you can jump onto as well. And a taxi stand there. So we're going to stick to this side. Maybe I should have gone to the other. On the left is Venus Fort, which is a shopping mall. Yeah, some good stuff in there, I guess. I'm not really. I don't really come here for shopping anymore. It's more of a date spot. This whole island is more of a date and entertainment area of the city of Tokyo.

00:16:05 John Daub: This looks like something that was going to be a venue. Now it feels abandoned. Let's get a closer look here. They even have these cool down fans for people. The city of Tokyo bought this. They bought thousands of these cool down fans for foreign visitors. I don't know where they are. Probably in a warehouse somewhere. Do you see one? There's one operating, cranking it out, and there's nobody there to receive it. It's not fair. They should put it out here. I'd love to have a little cool down. It is a pretty nice shopping mall here. It's a cafe with a nice big window that looks out over this walkway.

00:17:03 John Daub: Congratulations to the Olympic medal winners. Two siblings won in judo recently. Abe. That was pretty cool to hear the news. I haven't seen much of the Olympics. I was just watching skateboarding before I came here. I rode past the BMX site and I guess those events aren't on right now. You know, I'm not really sure how the ratings are for the Tokyo games. I just know that I'm not watching them. You can see how close we are to Haneda Airport as well. It's one of a few flights that are going to be canceled. It's pretty cool. I wonder what's in that airplane. Do you think perhaps it is the postcards that I sent to about ten new people that signed up for the postcard club? That's right. This is the last chance to get the postcards this week because when August 1st hits, there's a new design. This is the castle in Aizu-Wakamatsu up there. And this month for those, I still have a bunch of them. This one's going to Annette in Canada. But you can see there is a Pikachu stamp on there. So everyone's getting a Pokemon stamp who gets this postcard. It's pretty cool. It's not too often that Pokemon and the Japan Post Office collaborate. So, definitely a collector's item. That's on Patreon. Patreon.com slash only in Japan. There's one more Daimyo box I think as well if you want a package that I send every month. I think there's one available on there too.

00:19:17 John Daub: Just opened it up. A lot of gals in goth. Is there some sort of convention going on? That's pretty cool. I see Nightbot's not getting any love. Nightbot does not deserve the love. Its purpose, facilitate. Even if I disagree with Nightbot, I'm afraid to go against the Nightbot actually. Kind of stay on the Nightbot's good side. So we salute you Nightbot for your hard work. If your artificial intelligence can hear me now. I'm on your side and thanks for taking out all these other people.

00:20:27 John Daub: Alright, we're getting close to DiverCity which means Mobile Suit Gundam is in sight. Here we go. The first view. Oh! Larger than life. Fire that suit up. That's pretty cool. You can only, that's so cool. You can only see half of the Mobile Suit in the distance. It looks gargantuan from here. That's pretty cool. Alright, we're gonna walk over there. Just across from DiverCity is a three on three basketball venue. So we'll give you a look at that. Again, there's security making sure I can't go to a certain point. I like this walk because you get these little views. If you take a look to the right, you can see just a little bit of Rainbow Bridge. Just a little bit.

00:21:31 John Daub: So now that I've shown you where the Mobile Suit is, you probably know where I am now. A lot of you. We started at the Olympic Cauldron and we're walking this way. In the heat. The heat. You know. How did that car get on here? Oh, it's a bunch of coppers. It's one of those Columbo sirens from the 1970s. Chase you down. Water. Agua. Mizu. Alright, this gives you a little bit of a look here. Hey Cobra Bebop! Your package is on the way. So what is after the Olympics? Take the Mobile Suit for a spin. That's one way we can see the Olympics. We're going to stop this typhoon. A bunch of Mobile Suits can go in there and fire rockets at it. To break it up a little bit. Here's DiverCity. Here's where the Mobile Suit Gundam is right here. And this venue right across is where the stadium is for the 3 on 3 basketball. So we're going to go check that out right now. We're here. We just got to go over the DI Bridge. Which goes over some of the highways, the roadways here. When this isn't called the Olympic Promenade. It Symbol Promenade Park.

00:23:09 John Daub: Okay, black screen. Damn it. How's that? Are we back? Hello? No? Okay, we're back. Sorry about that. So this is Symbol Promenade Park. We are right here. We're going to go over DI Bridge. And then I'm going to show you the Gundam and then the 3 on 3 basketball venue. Michael Susano. Heard it was a pretty hot day, John. Make sure you stay hydrated. Don't want you passing out during the live stream. Michael, you have my back, brother. Thank you. I'm going to do that right now. The first vending machine I see, I'm going to just jump inside of it and get that drink one way or another. Shrink myself down. All right, there's the mobile suit in the distance. You can see it right there. That's pretty cool. Gargantuan. Look at that little kid compared to it. No comparisons.

00:24:21 John Daub: There is a typhoon coming in. I'm a little bit worried about it. Should be okay. Oh, the sweat's getting into my eyes and body. It's burning a little bit. Ah, ah, the mask is so hot inside. I heard that the tennis players complained that it was too hot for them to play yesterday. And some of the Olympians had said that not said but demanded requested that they play at night because of the heat. Hello. Knock, knock, knock. McFly. I told you don't hold these Olympic Games in July and August. I guess hold them in September. Hard court, hard floor, hard court tennis in Tokyo is insane. Again, I've had people from India from Delhi said that it was hotter here. That's insane. This is the mix of humidity and heat and the way it's all bottled up in the summer is pretty awful. Although I think we're getting some typhoon winds here a little bit. That's cooled it down. That's a three on three basketball court right there. So there's some action going on.

00:25:46 John Daub: Anybody who has a Smithsonian channel? I think there's one more broadcast of Peter. I Peter me, Kanae and Toby eats Satoshi and Shinichi on the Smithsonian channel on Mighty Trains, which is playing played yesterday and today. You can see us on the most expensive train in Japan. I think three on three that banners backwards or is it? Hey, did the pictograph did the pictograph guys do this yesterday or the opening ceremony? The three on three basketball court? That's pretty cool. They were the highlights of the opening ceremony. Let's face it. The drones and the three on three and the pictograph people. I think they did. Did anybody see them in the photograph? People did a news conference. They were they did. They were just sitting there in the background like these these three was it one or two or three camera? I saw a picture run on the by the press. They're just sitting at the table with the governor of Tokyo taking questions. And like you could not have planned any cooler than that. You have to put them in. You have to put the pictograph people in everything to make it less serious.

00:26:57 John Daub: There aren't supposed to be any spectators, but there are a couple people inside of there. Looks like there's a rock climbing wall over there, doesn't it? Is that an Olympic sport? But all in all, this place looks pretty abandoned, doesn't it? Carlos says, yes, interesting. I honestly can say now that even now I don't know all of the Olympic sports. I was watching water polo, US beat Japan. That's a pretty tough sport. They had underwater cameras. They don't touch the ground at all for a long time. I don't think I could do that. You know who was liking the water polo, though? Leo. I think he might have some water polo in him. He loves bath time, and he loves balls. Loves to play with his little teeny, I don't know, scrunchie balls that we have for him.

00:28:11 John Daub: All right, I can hear whistles, so I know that they're doing a three-on-three basketball right now. I'm going to walk a little bit towards the venue and see what we can see, okay? The triathlon was supposed to be held at Odaiba Beach, I believe, and that's been fenced off. So I'm guessing maybe it's still being held there. Look at all this. They set all of this up for nothing. They could have just held it without the stands, and you can see now this venue for the three-on-three basketball is kind of just wasted. Because there's nobody here. Now, that doesn't mean it's not going to get used, because we don't know what they're going to be doing for that, okay? They could have no people at the Olympic Games, and then they could have full stands for the Paralympics. If we get the herd immunity with more vaccinations, I'm not sure.

00:29:20 John Daub: Those rails for skateboarders are ball-breaking. Shadow Cat, I read that. I don't know. Look, I'll be honest with you. I don't want to talk too much and speculate about why the Games had to be held now. All right, sorry. There was a dead spot right there for the signal. We should be back. Let me know if there's any trouble. I think I'm on 4G LTE. Any trouble? I think I'm on 4G LTE, not the 5G right now. Considering that Tokyo had another year to prepare for this. Welcome back. I apologize for the black screen. Signal's not good at the Tokyo Waterfront City.

00:30:32 John Daub: Zoom in again. What's going on? All right, hold on. How are we doing now, everybody? Hopefully the camera's running a little bit better. Sorry, it's getting a little funky there. I hope you can see this because we have now made it. Is it zooming? All right, one second. Here we go. Give it a try. I'm being jammed. All right, fourth attempt. I'm getting Discord notifications, too, about the status. Have I been hijacked by local media? Is it zooming again? Well, if you're zooming, you're zooming. I'm being zoomed in on Mobile Suit Gundam right now. Okay, we're going to try it again. All right, hold on. Fifth attempt. I got this. Fifth attempt. Let there be light. Houston, we have a problem. Nope. Zoom. Dead zone. Nope. Still zoomed. Double zoom. You don't got this. All right. Okay. Listen to the sound of my voice. This is John in another world. I'm going to try to get this. An infinite world full of pixels expanded by 10,000. Soon, John will be starting a new live stream, one that hopefully will not have this problem. He'll take you to the three on three basketball again to highlight the beautiful venues that none of us could attend in infinite world zone. So stay tuned for three minutes from now. Another live stream will begin. See you soon. As I return from thousand inflated pixel world. I don't know what I'm talking about. All right. See you soon.